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Photos by: joanneleon. September, 2013.
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--- Wednesday afternoon/evening ---
Good gawd. h/t to Digby and Kuttner (excerpted below) for the tip about this horrendous Tom Friedman Unit channeling Alan Simpson column. Perfectly timed, of course. Must be a coincidence! FSM help us all. (Remember, BlueTeamSez: DON'T call it a Grand Bargain! Not a Catfood Committee!)
Sorry, Kids. We Ate It All.
Eventually this shutdown crisis will end. And eventually the two parties will make another stab at a deal on taxes, investments and entitlements. [...] Could this time be different? Short of an economic meltdown, there is only one thing that might produce meaningful change: a mass movement for tax, spending and entitlement reform led by the cohort that is the least organized but will be the most affected if we don’t think long term — today’s young people.
[...]
Whether they realize it or not, they’re the ones who will really get hit by all the cans we’re kicking down the road. After we baby boomers get done retiring — at a rate of 7,000 to 11,000 a day — if current taxes and entitlement promises are not reformed, the cupboard will be largely bare for today’s Facebook generation.
[...]
Druckenmiller urges young people to design their own solutions, but, when asked, he recommends: raising taxes on capital gains, dividends and carried interest — now hugely weighted to the wealthy and elderly — to make them equal to earned income taxes; making all consumers more price sensitive when obtaining health care; means-testing Social Security and Medicare so they go to those most in need; phasing in higher age qualifications for entitlements and cutting corporate taxes to zero, so the people who actually create jobs will have more resources to do so.
Remember this?
This is the estate of Friedman Unit Simpson (FUS). Or one of them anyway. Who knows? There are probabaly more. And he's working his ass off to take money from the poor, the disabled, the powerless. There's got to be a special place in kharmic hell for guys like this, pretending to give helpful advice to the young when really attempting to bamboozle them and pit generation against generation, all for the benefit of Wall Street and the 1% (and so that he can maintain this kind of lifestyle for himself).
Friedman mansion
Digby.
The moustache of (mis)understanding strikes again
The consensus among the more progressive insiders is that the Tea Party will never relent on "tax reform" that includes a tax increase, even if it's offset by billions in tax cuts and that the White House will never agree to anything that doesn't include at least the appearance of revenue so we're safe from Friedman's Folly. I sincerely hope that's true.
But I'm not going to stop hammering on it until Democrats stop offering up "entitlements" in budget negotiations. And right now they are on TV every single day emphasizing just how willing they are to cut them. These are not programs to be used as betting chips in a game of chance and as long as they continue to validate the self-serving assumptions of elite columnists and their manipulative billionaire pals, it's important to maintain a very hard line. It just isn't smart to assume that people will never do the things they say they want to do.
The day the Democratic Party votes for a bill that cuts, rather than raises, Social Security benefits is the day it will have sold off the last piece of its already tattered political soul. I'm fairly sure the Villagers and the political establishment don't think that matters, but the rest of us should.
So yeah, zombie Catfood Committee is back. Again. I think this is the third time but I've lost count. It's time to ramp up the anti-Catfood activism again. Eight weeks til they deliver their goods again. It's not clear yet what their instructions are and what their "framework" is. I wonder how many of the old Catfood members will be on this Bicameral Catfood Committee. Dick Durbin and Paul Ryan should be shoe-ins. Are they putting some fast track rules in for this one? Special rules, no amendments type thing again?
Kuttner. Best to read it all to get the full story on the man who Friedman cites as his expert, Stanley Druckenmiller.
Tom Friedman’s Worst Column Ever
Sometimes, Tom Friedman writes a column that is such complete baloney it makes you want to retch. Rather than risking soiling my shoes, here is a point-by-point rebuttal to Friedman’s opus du jour, titled: “Sorry, Kids. We Ate It All.”
Friedman’s column swallows whole the budgetary malarkey of the corporate Fix-the-Debt lobby and its Wall Street sponsors. Namely, the reduced horizons of the next generation are the result of the gluttony of old folks—and of unions.
But what makes this piece especially appalling (and emblematic) is that the hero of Friedman’s piece is one Stanley Druckenmiller, a hedge-fund billionaire who has appointed himself as the Paul Revere of deficit reduction to warn America’s college students that The Seniors Are Coming. In passing, Friedman discloses that Druckenmiller is also “a friend.” So on top of the absurd logic of the piece, Friedman is guilty of a conflict of interest—using the most valuable real estate in American journalism to do a favor for a chum.
[...]
Contrary to this sort of propaganda, the economic-injustice problem in America is not about generations. It’s about class. Specifically, Stanley Druckenmiller’s class. But Druckenmiller, approvingly quoted by Friedman, blames the diminished horizons of the young on “current spending on my generation” as if he had anything whatever in common with the people reliant on Social Security.
A good quote to remember from July, 2011. h/t dharmafarmer.
Time Magazine, July, 2011
"I'm the President of the United States," Obama told Boehner. "You're the Speaker of the House. We're the two most responsible leaders right now." And so they began to talk about the truly epic possibility of using the threat, the genuine danger of default, to freeze out their respective extremists and make the kind of historic deal that no one really thought possible anymore — bigger than when Reagan and Tip O'Neill overhauled the tax code in 1986 or when Bill Clinton and Newt Gingrich passed welfare reform a decade later. It would include deeper cuts in spending, the elimination of all kinds of tax loopholes and lower income tax rates for all. "Come on, you and I," Boehner admitted telling Obama. "Let's lock arms, and we'll jump out of the boat together."
Bicameral Catfood Committee has a deadline of December 11.
Debt Deal Back on Track and Why the Wheels Came off Yesterday
[...]the current outline a short-term deal in which the government stays open through January 15, and the authorization to borrow is pushed back till February 7 with a budget that supercedes the short-term deal due in by December 11.
[...]
The Democrats wanted a December budget because a new round of spending cuts kicks in under the sequester on January 15 and they want a budget wrapped up before then.
And the Republicans have lost big from the shutdown and they know it, even if the Tea Party faction is trying to tell itself otherwise.
[Emphasis added]
Here's Ezra Klein with a huge trial balloon which I suspect would be from the O Team. Republicans are not going to cough up any revenue. The only kind of revenue we'll get is some phony revenue from "tax reform" or some promise of tax reform with a bullshit reason that tax cuts create new revenue. So remember when I said that I thought immigration reform was going to be part of a Grand Bargain? Look at this and holy shit he draws a ridiculous equivalence between the Dems and the Republicans, and he cites Larry Summers.
Democrats Should Surrender on Taxes
No matter which deal ultimately resolves the U.S. government shutdown, it’s almost certain to include a new bicameral budget commission. This will be the eighth major budget commission since 2010. Until now, every single one of them has failed for the same reason: taxes. And if nothing changes, this one will fail too.
But something should change: Democrats should admit the obvious. For the time being, they’ve lost on taxes. And you know what? That’s OK. At least, it could be, if they were willing to admit it and smartly negotiate the terms of their surrender. [...] But it does one thing Republicans love: It locks in $1.2 trillion in deficit reduction without a dime in new tax revenue. And they intend to hold onto that win for dear life.
To put it plainly, Democrats aren’t going to persuade Republicans to lift sequestration in return for a mix of entitlement cuts and tax increases. [...]
The worst mistake Democrats could make would be to become the mirror image of Republicans on the tax issue. Republicans are cannibalizing everything they care about -- defense, deficit reduction, their chances of retaking the Senate -- to keep taxes low. The Republican obsession with taxes is an opportunity for Democrats to exploit, not an example for them to mimic.
[...]
Democrats should use their leverage to get something they actually want. Immigration reform and infrastructure investment are obvious places to start. They mean vastly more to the economy and to people’s lives than slightly higher taxes on rich people. And they’re things that many in the Republican Party want, too.
There’s precedent for these kinds of wide-lens deals: The 1997 Balanced Budget Act was all spending cuts, but part of the bargain was that Republicans agreed to create the Children’s Health Insurance Program.
[Emphasis added]
--- Thursday Morning ---
At the very last minute, leaving themselves the maximum window for fearmongering of the people and disaster capitalism, Congress passed the Senate deal. After all of the drama and the damage, what did we end up with? A postponement and a Catfood Commission. And then they do it all over again in a couple/three months. As everyone decompresses, removes themselves from the frenzy, they start to see things a little more clearly, and this does not look like much of a win after all.
After this fiasco, it's very clear that the front page and the loudest voices on this site have lost all credibility.
Even When the GOP Loses, It Wins
Think the Senate deal is a resounding defeat for Republicans? Think again.
Because the deal only includes minor concessions, the Beltway consensus is that it represents a resounding defeat for Republicans, who “surrendered” their original demands to defund or delay Obamacare. In the skirmish of opinion polls, that may be true, for now. But in the war of ideas, the Senate deal is but a stalemate, one made almost entirely on conservative terms. The GOP now goes into budget talks with sequestration as the new baseline, primed to demand longer-term cuts in Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. And they still hold the gun of a US default to the nation’s head in the next debt ceiling showdown.
Surrender? Any more “victories” like this and Democrats will end up paying tribute into the GOP’s coffers.
The Guardian liveblog asks why is this man smiling. Then they say "Seriously, why is he smiling?"
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Keith Alexander is leaving but isn't planning to go until March or April. That's five or six months, which means he'll likely be around to answer questions for more hearings and more reporting on the Snowden files. This also might mean that he'll be around for the attempts to reform NSA with legislation. His civilian counterpart is leaving even sooner, by end of year and the article says he was due to retire. I hope there will be a special prosecutor and/or independent hearings. I'm wondering if this has anything to do with Clapper's NSA review team recommendations. I can't see how Clapper survives this either. Alexander is not just the head of the NSA. He also commands a military unit and the Cyber Command. The article says he was planning to leave in the spring anyway. I don't know if that's true, but it is true that he has been in this position for much longer than is customary for NSA directors. So the official story is that both of them were planning to retire anyway and the Snowden files had nothing to do with the timing.
Are these guys just going to retire quietly, with no repercussions? Just retire and collect a government pension, probably go out and work in the massive privatized intelligence machine that he helped to create, along with Michael Hayden, who has been getting very wealthy for years now, the same way?
I can't remember how it goes when a person has already left the government during big special prosecutor hearings (there have been no announcements of that, I'm just musing). I don't know if it's better (assuming one wants to do damage control and cover up) if the head honcho is still in the govt. position or not.
Greenwald has recently said that the stories they haven't reported on yet are even worse than what has been revealed so far. I think the latest stories from WaPo, which involved NSA programs that don't fall under the 215 and 702 programs that everybody in the govt wants to limit discussion to, may have turned up the heat. These were the stories about the contact lists and they are done under presidential authority (executive order 12333) alone. All of the answers that Alexander and Obama, et al, have given about Americans' emails and calls not being read, etc., are kind of out the window when the "Article II" programs are taken into consideration. When anyone refers to "Article II" programs they're talking about Article II of the Constitution, the naked power of the executive branch. We still don't know how much of what the NSA does is done under Article II authority, strictly on a written order of the president. But you can just imagine. And as far as I know, none of the hearings so far have really touched those programs. Everybody (or almost everybody) tries to frame their questions and answers strictly within the context of the programs that fall under the FISA and PATRIOT Act, for which there is intelligence committee oversight. It's really been farcical and it can't go on forever like that.
Just an odd coincidence: the guy they're saying might replace Alexander has the same name as the House Intelligence committee chairman. Mike Rogers.
U.S. eavesdropping agency chief, top deputy expected to depart soon
Alexander has formalized plans to leave by next March or April, while his civilian deputy, John "Chris" Inglis, is due to retire by year's end, according to U.S. officials who spoke on condition of anonymity.
[...]
One leading candidate to replace Alexander is Vice Admiral Michael Rogers, currently commander of the U.S. Navy's 10th Fleet and U.S. Fleet Cyber Command, officials told Reuters. The 10th Fleet and Fleet Cyber Command both have their headquarters at Fort Meade, Maryland, between Washington and Baltimore. The NSA is also headquartered at Fort Meade.
[...]
Alexander has served as NSA director since August 2005, making him its longest-serving chief. He also serves as commander of a related military unit, the U.S. Cyber Command.
This article shows what four past NSA directors did after they left. Defense and intelligence contracting companies pull in billions. It's a huge gravy train. Northrup Grumman had $25 billion in revenues last year and most of it was from defense contracting. Billions and billions flowing into these companies for years and years. And yet, this government is trying to pinch pennies on a food stamp program that provides about $4.50 / day for people who are destitute enough to qualify for it, and trust me, you have to be destitute to qualify for it.
As NSA Director Alexander Plans Departure, Here's How Former Top Spooks Cashed In On 'Retirement'
Luckily for Alexander and Inglis, they have a perk-filled escape route from the NSA controversy: A lucrative position at a Beltway contractor or consultancy. As much as 70% of the intelligence community's budget-nearly $11 billion for the NSA alone last year according to one Snowden leak-goes to contractors, writes Tim Shorrock, author of the book Spies for Hire. And plenty of those firms would be eager to employ someone with as much influence over that budget as Alexander. "This guy has incredible power," says Shorrock. "I expect he'll bring that to the contractor world. It's just too enticing."
Study estimates nearly 500,000 Iraqis died in war
New research on the human cost of the war in Iraq estimates that roughly half a million men, women and children died between 2003 and 2011 as a direct result of violence or the associated collapse of civil infrastructure.
In a study published Tuesday in the journal PLOS Medicine, researchers concluded that at least 461,000 “excess” Iraqi deaths occurred in the troubled nation after the U.S.-led invasion that resulted in the overthrow of President Saddam Hussein. Those were defined as fatalities that would not have occurred in the absence of an invasion and occupation.
The study’s release follows several controversial and widely varying estimates of Iraq war deaths. It is the first analysis published since 2006, the bloodiest period of the war.
[...]
Estimates of Iraq war deaths have varied greatly over the years.
In a study that appeared in the journal Lancet in 2004, Les Roberts and his colleagues estimated that about 100,000 deaths occurred during the first year of the war; a second study he helped conduct estimated that more than 600,000 deaths had occurred by 2006.
In both cases, Roberts said, officials in the George W. Bush administration dismissed the estimates as not credible. He said the latest study is further evidence that the Iraq war death toll is much higher than officials realized or chose to acknowledge.
Jay Rosen's interview with Pierre Omidyar.
Why Pierre Omidyar decided to join forces with Glenn Greenwald for a new venture in news
Yesterday word leaked out that Glenn Greenwald would be leaving The Guardian to help create some new thing backed by Pierre Omidyar, the founder of eBay. I just got off the phone with Omidyar. So I can report more details about what the new thing is and how it came to be.
In the spring of this year, Omidyar was one of the people approached by the Washington Post Company about buying the Post. Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, wound up with the prize. But as a result of exploring that transaction, Omidyar started thinking seriously about investing in a news property. He began to ask himself what could be done with the same investment if he decided to build something from the ground up.
As he was contemplating the Post purchase, he began to get more alarmed about the pressures coming down on journalists with the various leak investigations in Washington. Pierre. Then the surveillance stories started appearing and the full scope of the threat to independent journalism became clear. His interest in launching a new kind of news organization — capable of sustaining investigative work and having an effect with it — intensified throughout the summer as news from the Snowden files continued to pour forth.
Attempts to meet with Greenwald to discuss these plans and to find out more about how he operates were unsuccessful until this month. When they finally were able to talk, Omidyar learned that Greenwald, his collaborator Laura Poitras, and The Nation’s Jeremy Scahill had been planning to form their own journalism venture. Their ideas and Omidyar’s ideas tracked so well with each other that on October 5 they decided to “join forces” (his term.) This is the news that leaked yesterday. But there is more.
[...]
By “support” Omidyar means many things. The first and most important is really good editors. (Omidyar used the phrase “high standards of editing” several times during our talk.) Also included: strong back end technology. Powerful publishing tools. Research assistance. And of course a strong legal team because the kind of journalism NewCo intends to practice is the kind that is capable of challenging some of the most powerful people in the world. Omidyar said NewCo will look for “independent journalists with expertise, and a voice and a following.” He suggested that putting together a team of such people means understanding how each of them does his or her work, and supporting that, rather than forcing everyone into the same structure.
A blog post by Pierre Omidyar.
My Next Adventure in Journalism
I developed an interest in supporting independent journalists in a way that leverages their work to the greatest extent possible, all in support of the public interest. And, I want to find ways to convert mainstream readers into engaged citizens. I think there’s more that can be done in this space, and I’m eager to explore the possibilities.
Right now, I’m in the very early stages of creating a new mass media organization. I don’t yet know how or when it will be rolled out, or what it will look like.
What I can tell you is that the endeavor will be independent of my other organizations, and that it will cover general interest news, with a core mission around supporting and empowering independent journalists across many sectors and beats. The team will build a media platform that elevates and supports these journalists and allows them to pursue the truth in their fields. This doesn’t just mean investigative reporting, but all news.
So it looks like Bart Gellman jumped out ahead of Jeremy Scahill with this story. Coincidence or did they do this on purpose? Greenwald and Scahill announced, a couple of weeks ago, what Scahill's involvement in the Snowden files was. One thing to remember is that the Guardian doesn't have all the Snowden documents. I think Gellman only has a subset of them too. Greenwald and Poitras have the full set. Whether or not this will be relevant in the kill program reporting, I don't know.
Documents reveal NSA’s extensive involvement in targeted killing program
But beyond filling in gaps about Ghul, the documents provide the most detailed account of the intricate collaboration between the CIA and the NSA in the drone campaign.
The Post is withholding many details about those missions, at the request of U.S. intelligence officials who cited potential damage to ongoing operations and national security.
The NSA is “focused on discovering and developing intelligence about valid foreign intelligence targets,” an NSA spokeswoman said in a statement provided to The Post on Wednesday, adding that the agency’s operations “protect the nation and its interests from threats such as terrorism and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.”
Action
October 26th, 2013 in Washington, D.C.
A Rally Against Mass Surveillance
Right now the NSA is spying on everyone's personal communications, and they’re operating without any meaningful oversight. Since the Snowden leaks started, more than 571,000 people from all walks of life have signed the StopWatching.us petition telling the U.S. Congress that we want them to rein in the NSA.
On October 26th, the 12th anniversary of the signing of the US Patriot Act, we're taking the next step and holding the largest rally yet against NSA surveillance. We’ll be handing the half-million petitions to Congress to remind them that they work for us -- and we won’t tolerate mass surveillance any longer.
12pm Eastern, Saturday October 26th
Gather at Columbus Circle in front of Union Station, then march to the Capitol Reflecting Pool
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